Why cant I format my CF Card on a500+

[djos]

It seems to do validate the disk at each boot up - I've checked and once WB is running the Validation is finished.

It is still painfully slow even with Buffers set to 70 - the fastest I've seen it boot was with just a single 501mb FFS partition as it only took 30secs to start loading the OS and was fairly responsive once WB was loaded. As soon as I added 2x 1.7GB FFS partitions it was back to being very slow.

I did discover one other issue with the v402 IDE68k during my testing tho - because the IDE connector is to the left of the CPU the IDE cable naturally wants to drape across the CPU causing it to overheat after about an hour of running. :p I re-routed the cable a bit to prevent this happening again.

[djos]

Arrrgh, got one of my 4GB CF cards working perfectly in WinUAE with PFS3 (not DS - dunno what the diff is either) using ClassicWB on a 500mb system part with a 3.3GB Data part and it wont boot in my real miggy! :confused:

I get the drive clicking in 15seconds (vs 2mins with FFS) and I see HDD activity for about 1 min with a black screen then HDD activity stops and nothing happens!

Should I be using PFS3-DS or is this a case of having 2x partitions with buffers of 300 each doesnt work with my current non-autoconfig 8mb ram (i have 1mb chip)?

[djos]

Ok I've got it "mostly" working - looks like i had the buffers set too high considering I only have 1 mb chip chip-ram, dropped them to 50 for each drive and it's ok.

what does the "direct scsi" version do that the normal version doesnt? (im using gayle IDE)

[djos]

@djos Not wanting to hijack your thread but if you are still looking at a 500 plus board...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/COMMODORE-AMIGA-A500-MAINBOARD-REVISION-8A-PERFECT-FAST-UK-SHIPPING-/290770253300?pt=UK_VintageComputing_RL&hash=item43b341f5f4

Bah, finally gave in and bought one, the desire to restore my 500+ to 100% got too strong! :biglaugh:

[djos]

Ok so I got PFS3 working and it is very fast compared to FFS but I keep running into an issue copying some files (doesnt matter which file system but does seem slightly worse with PFS3) from my PC to the CF card under winuae, it just get's to some files and appears to hang the VM (mouse works but thats it).

These files are typically ADF's with big long names - anyone else have this issue?

EDIT: Im wondering if it's choking on the "[" "]" characters in some file names?

[djos]

Well I just proved that theory wrong, replaced the square brackets with round brackets and it still choked on the same file.

..... However I tried shortening the file name lengths and that worked perfectly! :p

[djos]

I thought id fixed my IDE68k speed issues but I clearly havent, even with PFS3 installed both my 4GB CF cards are dead slow - Im getting 21,000bytes per second transfer from my Floppy drive and 5,500bytes per second transfer from my CF Cards.  I've even installed IDEFix97 and it hasnt made any real difference and either does boosting the buffer sizes.

CF Card:


Floppy Disk:


Anyone got any idea's?

[djos]

I've got a Kingston from Amigakit and SanDisk (30MB/s rated), both are as slow as each other - dont have any others to play with unfortunately.

[djos]

long files names aren't an issue for, just speed or lack thereof.

Btw, IDEFix + PFS3 seems to be a bad combo, I can no longer writ to my CF card as I get block ID errors. :crazy:

[djos]

Update: Today I completely rebuilt my miggy from scratch on my SanDisk 4GB 30mb/s CF card (instead of the Kingston 4GB) but even with a 200mb System Partition and 2 other partitions (1.9GB & 1.7GB), again using PFS3, the speed issue remains (it's not faster or slower).

Im waiting on a new rev8a Mobo, 1mb trapdoor card and 8mb auto-config ram board so it'l be interesting to see if anything changes then.

[djos]

I've got 2 single readers and there is no difference between them in speed, both are set as master.

Hmm, ok I'll get an el cheapo 1GB unit and try that.

[djos]

problem solved, it was the IDE68k v402 - according to Mika some cpld's were programmed with code revision where secondary /int2 wasn't working and mine only had connections for the secondary's so never tried the primary's (soldered some wires to the primary's this morning).

now I get 580,000 bytes a second transfer. :cool:

[djos]

Thanks me too.

Yep as soon as they arrive my 500 will be a genuine 500+ again with 2mb chip-ram.

[djos]

Well done!  Another success story.  You've kept at it I must say...

Thanks Mate .... yeah im pretty darn stubborn and I like solving problems so that helps too!